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BackgroundChildren’s exposure to violence is a major public health issue. The Balkan epidemiological study on Child Abuse and Neglect project aimed to collect internationally comparable data on violence exposures in childhood.MethodsA three stage stratified random sample of 42,194 school-attending children (response rate: 66.7%) in three grades (aged 11, 13 and 16 years) was drawn from schools in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), Greece, Romania, Serbia and Turkey. Children completed the ICAST-C questionnaire, which measures children’s exposure to violence by any perpetrator.ResultsExposure rates for psychological violence were between 64.6% (FYROM) and 83.2% (Greece) for lifetime and 59.62% (Serbia) and 70.0% (Greece) for past-year prevalence. Physical violence exposure varied between 50.6% (FYROM) and 76.3% (Greece) for lifetime and 42.5% (FYROM) and 51.0% (Bosnia) for past-year prevalence. Sexual violence figures were highest for lifetime prevalence in Bosnia (18.6%) and lowest in FYROM (7.6%). Lifetime contact sexual violence was highest in Bosnia (9.8%) and lowest in Romania (3.6%). Past-year sexual violence and contact sexual violence prevalence was lowest in Romania (5.0 and 2.1%) and highest in Bosnia (13.6 and 7.7% respectively). Self-reported neglect was highest for both past-year and lifetime prevalence in Bosnia (48.0 and 20.3%) and lowest in Romania (22.6 and 16.7%). Experiences of positive parental practices were reported by most participating children in all countries.ConclusionsWhere significant differences in violence exposure by sex were observed, males reported higher exposure to past-year and lifetime sexual violence and females higher exposure to neglect. Children in Balkan countries experience a high burden of violence victimization and national-level programming and child protection policy making is urgently needed to address this.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s13034-017-0208-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

S um m aryThe war-related stress had a nega tive im pact on the psychological well-being of all children in C roatia, but displaced and refugee children were especially affected. Although refugee children show ed im pressive resilience, particula r attentio n should be devoted to children who had traum atic experiences im m ediately prior to displacem ent. These children eith er lived without their parents or with parents who had poor coping abilities while displaced; lived in families that had accum ula ted several stressful experiences; or were housed in large collectiv e refugee centers. The children that had poorer coping capacities and lacked a supportive family env ironm ent displayed high levels of stress-related symptom atology through out the entire refugee period, being at special risk for the developm ent of further psychological dif® culties. The ® ndings reported in this study are the result of a ® ve-year follow -up of the sam e group of refugee children. D ata about children' s coping abilities with displacement were obtained primarily from m others and the children them selves.

AimTo examine age and gender differences in the prevalence and incidence of child sexual abuse, the level of acquaintance of the child and the perpetrator, and correlations between experiencing family violence and sexual abuse on a nationally representative sample of 11, 13, and 16 years old children.MethodA probabilistic stratified cluster sample included 2.62% of the overall population of children aged 11 (n = 1223), 13 (n = 1188), and 16 (n = 1233) from 40 primary and 29 secondary schools. A modified version of ISPCAN Child Abuse Screening Tool – Children's Version was used. Five items referred to child sexual abuse (CSA) for all age groups.ResultsIn Croatia, 10.8% of children experienced some form of sexual abuse (4.8% to 16.5%, depending on the age group) during childhood and 7.7% of children experienced it during the previous year (3.7% to 11.1%, depending on the age group). Gender comparison showed no difference in the prevalence of contact sexual abuse, whereas more girls than boys experienced non-contact sexual abuse. Correlations between sexual abuse and physical and psychological abuse in the family were small, but significant.ConclusionComparisons with international studies show that Croatia is a country with a low prevalence of CSA. The fact that the majority of perpetrators of sexual abuse are male and female peers indicates the urgent need to address risks of sexual victimization in the health education of children.

Background : The Covid-19 pandemic is associated with adverse mental health outcomes for people worldwide. Objective : The study aimed to assess mental health during the Covid-19 pandemic and the key risk factors from the human ecology perspective in Croatia’s adult population. Method : An online panel survey with 1,201 adult participants (50.1% women) was done with a nationally representative sample in terms of gender, age, and country region four months after the nation lockdown began and two months after most of the restrictions were lifted. Indicators of mental health included symptoms of adjustment disorder (ADNM-8); depression, anxiety, and stress (DASS-21); symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PC-PTSD-5); and well-being (WHO-5). Results : In the entire sample, 9.8% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 7.9%, 14.0%) of the participants were at risk of adjustment disorder, 7.7% (95% CI: 6.7%, 11.9%) were at risk of depression disorder, and 7.8% (95% CI: 5.3%, 10.3%) were at risk of anxiety disorder. In addition, 7.2% (95% CI: 5.3%, 10.2%) were experiencing high levels of stress. The average well-being score was 56.5 ( SD = 21.91) on a scale from 0 to 100. Among the participants who have lifetime traumatic experience ( n = 429), 14% (95% CI: 10.6%, 17.2%) were at risk for PTSD. Key risk factors for specific mental health outcomes differed, but the common ones included: current health status, previous mental health diagnosis, and psychological resilience. Being younger, having a below-average income, and excessively following news about Covid-19 were predictive for some of the mental health problems. Conclusions : Together, the key risk factors identified in this study indicate the need for public health interventions addressing the general population’s mental health, but also for specific risk groups. Lower rates of mental health symptoms assessed soon after lifting quarantine measures that have been found in other studies may indicate human resilience capacity.

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Rev. soc. polit., god. 15, br. 3, str 395-414, Zagreb 2008. Ajduković M.: Socijalni problemi, socijalni rizici...

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